Your views in 200 words or less

November 8, 2011 2:48 pm

With all of the budget cuts that the state has had to implement, education has taken a hit. In a time when levies are paying for the standard curriculum (which is unconstitutional), we cannot afford to take any more away from our schools.

The projected budget will take more away from schools. Education is the heartbeat of a society. If we can’t invest in our education, the entire community will suffer.

As unpopular as this may make me, an income tax would create the revenue needed for us to keep our schools running and even improve upon the current conditions. Despite the recent studies, I think most people would agree that our teachers are grossly underpaid. In these economic times, education is the one thing we must invest in. The future of our society depends on it.

Feeds

We also don’t need computers in school. Textbooks work just fine. We don’t need a bus that stops every block to pick up and drop off kids. They can’t walk? We don’t need a lot of things, but apparently they are all “needed” in school.

Here is an idea. If you want European education try what they practice.

1) If a student doesn’t pass a class, grade level they are not moved on to the next grade.
2) If a student fails an exam for college level courses they do not move onto a college bound high school until they pass, if they fail they move to a jobs apprentice school
3) Parents are responsible for transporting their kids to school not the government (like Europe)
4) Parents pay for text books (not the government like in Europe).

Imagine the amount of money you would save by not paying another $500,000 a year for local within a mile transportation buses for students and for parents to buy text books.

Want math scores like Europe you need to stop passing on bad kids to the next grade and give them job training.

igotdatbombfool,
Kids learn in different ways. Not ALL kids can take textbook information and apply that information in different ways. Computers in schools offers more up to date and accurate information about subjects. Maybe you don’t need your computer.

Kids now are subjected to predators that will harm kids. Additionally, the En-Loco-Parentis doctrine requires schools to be responsible for students from the time they exit their home to the time they return home.

NickDixon,
igotdatbombfool thinks all kids need is textbooks to learn. What he doesn’t realize is computers are cheaper than replacing textbooks because once a text is published, that text cannot offer more advanced and up to date information. What I often do with my students is access more information via internet than what is offered in the tects.

Using an iPad, schools can update their curriculum cheaper than buying textbooks regularly. Students can do work on the iPad and send data back and forth to the teacher for review, send a document wirelessly to a printer, or send it to other devises.

If you don’t want school budgets cut then you need to talk to Larry Seaquist and Derek Kilmer. They cut the Peninsula School budgets so Seattle democrats could save social welfare programs for the non residents of the Peninsula.

They cut your school budgets, now will you continue to vote for these two deceptive legislators?

May be a bit off subject, but refer to the side story of today’s paper and note that a ten year old walking to school was a victim of an attempted child abduction. With cut backs in education/ transportation, and more kids walking to school, we are essentially ringing the predator bell. As people argue back and forth in this “What’s mine is mine” society, we can expect more preying on people who cannot defend themselves.

The teacher’s union’s no longer have a rational or realistic basis for their existance .

The goals of the teachers union machine are not academic excellence, professional development and fairness. As former NEA official John Lloyd explained it: “You cannot possibly understand NEA without understanding Saul Alinsky. If you want to understand NEA, go to the library and get ‘Rules for Radicals.’”

Our nation’s traditional public schools have become a $594 billion drain on taxpayers. The unions have defended practices that have kept laggard teachers on the payroll. This has perpetuated the low quality of instruction in the nation’s schools, an underlying reason why 33 percent of American third-graders read “Below Basic Proficiency” on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, while 27 percent of eighth-graders are mathematically illiterate. The teacher’s unions have also stridently opposed efforts to expand school choice options that allow for families to opt out of failing urban schools and mediocre offering in suburbia. efforts to let local communities and parents reform the schools in their neighborhoods.

The union will do anything they can to keep anyone from improving schools for the better. Teachers unions only care about teachers, not about educating the children. On top of being responsible for the decline in American education, these teachers are bankrupting our states and localities with their ridiculous healthcare and pension benefits. I judge people by the results of their actions. The teachers unions across the country have failed our children miserably. The results speak for themselves.

Computer technology is in the fryer as well. Whether you think about it, bomputer technology, and Java technology is everywhere, from stoves, refrigerators, washer/dryers, phones, TV’s, HVAC systems, and other everyday devises.

I think it is essential now to include computer technology within the education system.

Frida – How far did the kid live from the school? If there was a bus stop, would he have to walk to it? Bad things happen all the time and it can’t be stopped. So in response to a kid getting abducted because his parents made an educated decision to allow him to walk to school unmonitored, you say add a bus stop at every corner. Right.

I’m also not seeing more kids walking to school. Can you show where they are? Are you talking about kids that live near a school? Are you saying that somebody has to do what most parents did when they were in school, back in the days of some of the most seriously disturbed serial killers and rapists. I have no sympathy for a kid who has to walk to school. They enjoyed the posh life for the last decade or so and now they have to come back to reality.

With how fat kids are today, a little walking would be good for them. Where I grew up if you lived within a certain distance of school (I think it was one mile), you walked. This was not that long ago and in an area much more affluent than Tacoma.

Violent crime has been steadily declining across America for decades. Stop the fearmongering.

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